Book Information: Omens of Death

When Detective Inspector Montague Pluke noticed the solitary crow upon the roof of No. 15 Padgett Grove, he realised it was an omen of death. An added factor was that the day was not the most providential of weekdays. Wednesday, like Wednesday's child, was often full of woe.

That unwelcome combination of portents dominated Montague's morning walk to the office and produced a mood of impending doom, albeit with just a glimmer of excitement. This glimmer was based on the fact that, as the officer in charge of the CID in Crickledale Sub-Divisional Police Station, he had never solved a murder or never arrested a killer. In fact, there had never been a murder in Crickledale, a pretty limestone market town on the edge of the North York Moors. It was Montague Pluke's ambition to detect a noteworthy murder, before retirement allowed him to seek neglected or forgotten horse troughs.

Fate seems to be on his side and, the very next day, the naked body of a young woman is found at the Druids' Circle. Then two more people die in suspicious circumstances and Montague Pluke is at last able to put all his police training, as well as his great knowledge of superstitions ancient and modern, to good work.